


Just The Way You Are

by aimmyarrowshigh



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And yeah, it was really, really weird that Harry and Louis would just touch each other’s daemons like that was something people did in public. Or at all, as far as Zayn knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just The Way You Are

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : I don't own anything. No claim of knowledge or veracity is made towards anyone in the story and no aspersions or claims of character are to be inferred. I have no connection nor permissions from One Direction, X-Factor, Simon Cowell, SyCo Inc., Sony, ITV, or Columbia Records. No libel intended.  
>  **Notes** : No knowledge of HDM is necessary (to be honest, I only read the first book myself and didn't love it OR the movie) -- just know that daemons are like patronuses that never go away.
> 
> ORIGINALLY POSTED [HERE](http://aimmyarrowshigh.livejournal.com/96641.html) on 11 May 2012.

** Just the Way You Are **

**  
_001._   
**  
The first time could have been passed off as an accident.

They were always in crowds, pushed together, jostled, tripping on each other’s heels. It seemed – okay, maybe unlikely, but not _unheard_ of, that in the crush of people outside of the studios, Darcy would have brushed right up against Louis’ leg.

There was nothing strange about that, Liam told himself. Harry and Louis were close. All of the boys were close. If Harry’s daemon was comfortable touching Louis, well, that was –

Only it _wasn’t_. Liam loved Louis, he did, he loved all of his boys, but Natasha would never go right up and _touch_ them. Even the thought of it gave Liam the creepy-crawlies as he fed Natasha bits of lettuce and rubbed the top of her leathern head. It had taken the pair of them months before even Dalihla could sit on Natasha’s back. They were comfortable with each other now, but even as cute as the friendship between Liam’s huge, thoughtful Galapagos tortoise and Zayn’s tiny bumblebee bat was, the idea of letting Zayn _touch_ Natasha –

It was too much like the idea of letting Zayn reach into Liam’s chest and feel around inside his heart, or unbraid his nerves up into his skull and pick through his brain. It was just too close. Liam didn’t think he would ever be that close to anyone. 

So he convinced himself that he’d seen it wrong, or it had been an accident in the crowd. Harry’s blue British shorthair hadn’t curled around Louis’ leg for comfort. It was just a trick of the light.

**_002._**  
They were in rehearsal the second time, and Niall wasn’t sure what to do with himself afterwards. He wanted to shower. He wanted to drink a load of beer, or maybe hot tea with lemon the way his mum made it, or maybe warm milk -- he wasn’t sure how he felt, so he wasn’t sure what he wanted.

But there was no mistaking it this time, and they didn’t talk about it. Maybe Niall would have felt better if they had. At least he would’ve known what it meant.

But they were in the middle of rehearsal and Frankie soared over and perched right on Harry’s shoulder like it was nothing. And Louis had just _smiled_ and pet his bright blue wing, yellow on its underside, while Frankie chirruped, “Hi, we’re One Direction! Carrots, Carrots!”

Teagan had run right up Niall’s trouser leg in embarrassment and he’d fished her out, blushing himself, to tuck her into his shirt pocket. 

_Please don’t give me to Harry_ , Teagan whispered to him. _I don’t like it._

“I wouldn’t,” Niall whispered back. He stroked her head over the direction of her cream-colored spines. 

The blond hedgehog shivered and nosed at Niall’s chest. _I’m hungry_.

“Me, too,” Niall said, and signaled them all that he was taking a break to go up to Tesco for a sausage roll. 

The other boys had followed along and none of them ever spoke about it. Frankie swooped in darting circles over their heads, nipping down to steal bites of Louis’ bacon sandwich while Louis whined that _parrots don’t_ eat _pigs, even if it does make alphabetical sense!_ Harry carried Darcy slung lazily around his neck like a living scarf that bit him sometimes, and she groomed her paws every time Harry stopped to sweep back his curly fringe. A way behind them, Dalihla rode on Natasha’s head, just a tiny weightless passenger on the tortoise’s ancient face, and Liam explained the plot of some scifi movie in great detail while Zayn picked at a chicken pasty.

_I just don’t want to be that close_ , Teagan apologized, peeking out from Niall’s pocket.

“That’s okay.” Niall shrugged. “I don’t think I do, quite, either.”

**_003._**  
Zayn thought it was all weird, but he didn’t really have room to speak. Yeah, it was weird that Louis’ daemon was a boy, but – it’s not like people could tell, what with Frankie being a Hyacinth macaw and all; birds are birds. And yeah, it was really, really weird that Harry and Louis would just touch each other’s daemons like that was something people did in public. Or at all, as far as Zayn knew. He’d never seen his mum pet Amina or his dad let Eyad climb up his shoulders, like Louis let Darcy.

But Zayn had no room to speak, what with Dalihla not actually being settled yet. That was weird, too.

He was nineteen. She should have settled a long time ago. Harry said that Darcy had settled when he was seven, but that wasn’t normal either. But Frankie and Teagan, they’d settled when the boys were fourteen, like normal daemons. Normal daemons for normal people.

The only of the boys who knew Zayn- and Dalihla’s secret was Liam, and that was only because Natasha told him.

“You know, it’s okay,” Liam had said. “Natasha didn’t settle until I was seventeen. The um – actually, at bootcamp, when we got put through, that’s when she, you know.” He shrugged.

Zayn rubbed the top of Dalihla’s head with his pinkie and she stretched her wings happily. “I don’t know why we haven’t yet. Makes me feel like a little kid.”

“Does she change, ever?” Liam asked. “Like when you’re scared, or – ” He cut himself off with a pink flush to his cheeks.

Zayn shook his head. “No. But she never really did? Even when I was right little, she just. She likes being a bat.”

“Maybe she’s been settled all along,” Liam suggested. “Just like – born secure.”

“Nah,” Zayn had argued. Dalihla hopped off his knee and glided over to perch on Natasha’s long neck, pecking her way around to search for ticks and other tasty treats. “I can tell. I don’t know what she’s waiting for, but. We’re deffo waiting for something.”

Liam reached over and rubbed Zayn’s shoulder. “I hope you find it.”

For a split second – not even long enough that Liam would be able to see, but Zayn could feel it in the pit of his stomach like a warm, rosy-pink glow – Dalihla shifted into a tiny Warbler finch.

Zayn smiled at Liam and rested the side of his hand carefully, inconspicuously, against the warmth of Liam’s thigh. “Me, too.”

**_004._**  
When Louis was four, just before he started nursery school, his mum sat him down to talk to him. He sat in his mum’s lap, like he always did, and Frankie shifted into a penguin chick to nestle snug into Danny’s feet.

Jay kissed Louis’ head. “Are you excited to start school, my little boo?”

“Yes,” Louis said impatiently. “Mum, what are you interrupting me and Frankie for? We were about to do a very important mission!”

“That mission wouldn’t happen to be digging up my hydrangeas again, would it?”

Louis’ eyes flicked to the corner, where he’d hidden his yellow plastic spade, and back again. “No.”

“Good,” Jay said firmly. “Because if it was, you and Frankie would be in _very_ big trouble. No-dessert trouble.”

“Okay, okay,” Louis sighed. “Izzat it?”

“No, sweetpea. Louis, you understand that most little boys have daemons who are girls, don’t you?”

“I just got lucky, I guess,” Louis shrugged. “And I won’t tease anyone for naming their daemon Cinderella or whatever girls are named; I promise.”

“Well, that’s good, but – sweetheart,” Jay chose her next words carefully. “I think that maybe you and Frankie should consider just not telling anyone for a while yet that he’s a boy. Just until you’ve made some nice friends at school who know how fun and nice and smart and funny and bright you are.”

Louis frowned. “Why?”

Jay swallowed. “Some people don’t like it when boys have boy daemons or girls have girl daemons.”

“Do you not like it?” Louis asked worriedly. Frankie shifted nervously into a slow loris and stretched up the length of Louis’ leg.

“No,” Jay said sharply. “No. Louis, you know that I love you and Frankie exactly as you are because you’re wonderful. But sometimes the world isn’t wonderful, and it can be very mean. But I love you, and your real friends will always love you, and loving you means loving Frankie, too.”

“Well, then I won’t pretend anything,” Louis declared. “I don’t need friends who don’t like Frankie. Me and him are the same.”

Thirteen years later, in a bathroom at Wembley Arena, a boy with curly brown hair, a wide smile, and a round-faced cat daemon with wide copper eyes stopped short and cried out, “Wow! Is your daemon a tropical parrot? That’s a great color. I think blue daemons are best, but I might be biased since Darcy here is blue, too.”

“Yeah,” Louis said. He smiled back carefully and felt something glow, rosy-pink and warm, in the pit of his stomach. Frankie flew over to balance on his shoulder on one clawed foot. _Showoff_ , Louis whispered to him. “This is Frankie. He’s a Hyacinth macaw.”

The boy didn’t even give pause. “Can he sing, too?”

“Man in the mirror!” Frankie warbled. “Hey there, Delilah. Gotta catch ‘em all!”

“Shut up, Frankie,” Louis chuffed. He slipped Frankie a bit of biscuit from his pocket and Frankie fanned his tail happily. “I’m Louis.”

“I’m Harry,” Harry said, and stuck out his hand. “And Darcy only sings when I pull her tail.”

**_005._**  
When they get put together into a band,   
Natasha shifted from a nervous pygmy goat into a sturdy and sensible Galapagos tortoise, and Liam paused, froze, _relief_ yellow-gold and rosy-hot rolling off of him in drenching waves, and moments later  
Dalihla poked her head out of Zayn’s boottop and made an inquisitive sound that normally, no one could hear, not even Zayn with his human ears, but  
Teagan heard it, nosing out from Niall’s pocket as he jumped around the stage, whooping and happy, hopping up and down past   
Harry and Louis, stuck tight in each other’s arms, Frankie flapping around their heads shrieking, “Put through! Put through!” and Darcy wound around Harry’s ankles.

That was the first time it almost happened. When Louis slid down, legs tracing Harry’s as they unwound from the taller boy’s waist, Darcy was so close that he could almost feel the soft fur of her belly, the vibrating press of her purr as she congratulated Harry and rubbed her head against her boy’s ankle.

It didn’t feel strange, being so close. But then Louis had always had a touchy family; he still liked to pet Danny’s sleek, feathery flippers and silly yellow eyebrows when he felt conflicted, and his sisters’ bunnies and hummingbirds and Fizzy’s koala always seemed to find their way into the foot of his bed when any of the girls were sad and needed a cuddle. His family’s daemons felt comfortable and cozy because the Tomlinsons’ souls were one and the same, just a patchwork quilt of good feelings.

But Harry’s daemon didn’t feel comfortable and cozy. She was electric and buzzing and new and it made Louis feel shaky to have her so close, so near his skin, so near his soul.

Harry had kissed him on the cheek to say goodbye, and late that night, tucked into bed, Frankie waddled across Louis’ pillow and murmured, _They like us; Darcy told me. They like us just how we are._

** THE DAEMONS **

Harry's Darcy  


Louis' Frankie  


Niall's Teagan  


Zayn's Delihla  


Liam's Natasha  
[](http://statcounter.com/free-web-stats/)


End file.
